Labor leader, Bill Shorten, has written to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull outlining what he thinks should be examined in a Royal Commission into Australia’s banking system. From The Guardian:
In a letter to Turnbull on Sunday night Shorten said a royal commission into the banking and financial services industry should examine issues such as:
1. How widespread instances of illegal and unethical behaviour are within Australia’s financial services industry
2. How Australia’s financial services institutions treat their duty of care to their customers
3. How the culture, ethical standards and business structures of Australian financial services institutions affect the behaviour of these institutions
4. Whether Australia’s regulators are really equipped to identify and prevent illegal and unethical behaviour
5. Comparable international experience with similar financial services industry misconduct and best practice responses to those incidents
6. And other events as may come to light in the course of investigating the above.
I would also explicitly add clearing-up the conflict between APRA and the RBA, which is leading to buck passing and regulatory failure (see here and here), as well as claims of dodgy lending standards and mortgage fraud (see here, here, here and here).
